The Seed and the Soil: Africa's Agricultural Sovereignty Under Siege

A Deep Dive into Seeds, Fertilizers, Colonial Patterns, and the Fight for Africa's Food Future*

"The origin of food is seed. Whoever controls the seed controls the entire food chain."

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## Part I: Before the Disruption — Africa's Agricultural Heritage

To understand what Africa has lost — and what must be reclaimed — you first need to understand what existed before the interference began.

Long before European colonisers arrived, Africa was not a continent of agricultural backwardness. Complex, sophisticated farming systems had been evolving for thousands of years. African farmers domesticated millet and sorghum suited to semi-arid climates, cultivated rice in West Africa, and developed yam varieties that grew larger, starchier, and more resilient over centuries of selective breeding. Communities in the Nile Valley, the Sahel, the Congo Basin, and the East African highlands each developed farming systems uniquely adapted to their ecologies, seasons, and soils.

These were not primitive systems. They were the products of generations of accumulated knowledge — what today we would call sophisticated participatory plant breeding. Farmers saved seeds, selected for performance, shared genetic material across communities, and maintained diversity as a deliberate strategy against drought, pests, and disease. Polyculture — growing multiple crops together — was the norm, not the exception. It built soil health, attracted beneficial insects, and ensured that if one crop failed, others survived.

This is the baseline. This is what was disrupted.

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## Part II: Colonialism and the Engineered Dependency (1880s–1960s)

European colonisation did not simply extract land and labour from Africa — it extracted and deliberately reorganised the continent's agricultural systems. The colonial objective was unambiguous: African land and African farmers would produce raw materials for export and processing in Europe. The economic benefits from production were expatriated, rather than supporting local development and food security. [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/tracing-the-history-of-farming-across-africa-gives-clues-to-low-production-outputs-163386)

This had several concrete consequences for seeds and farming:

**Export crop monocultures replaced food diversity.** Across the continent, colonial administrations compelled farmers to grow cotton in Mali and Egypt, cocoa in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, groundnuts in Senegal, tobacco in Rhodesia. These crops weren't chosen because they fed African communities — they were chosen because European factories and markets demanded them. The diversity of African seed systems was bulldozed in favour of single-crop plantations.

**Indigenous seed and knowledge systems were marginalised.** Colonial agricultural research stations — established from the 1890s onwards — were designed to serve export agriculture, not African food security. Agricultural development became based on western economic, technological and political ideologies, rather than African solutions for African conditions. [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/tracing-the-history-of-farming-across-africa-gives-clues-to-low-production-outputs-163386)

**African soils began their long decline.** The imposition of monocultures stripped the soil of the organic matter and biodiversity that had sustained it. African soils are geologically very old, and most are infertile and respond poorly to mineral fertilizer. Fertile soils are mainly found in the East African Rift Valley, and on the floodplains and deltas where silt is deposited, and require careful agricultural water management. [Phys.org](https://phys.org/news/2021-07-history-farming-africa-clues-production.html) Colonial extraction — continuous cropping of a single export variety, year after year, with no rotation or fallow — initiated a cycle of soil depletion that continues to this day.

**The colonial economic benefits were wholly expatriated.** There was no reinvestment in local food systems, irrigation, or farmer support infrastructure. Africa was producing for Europe's benefit, and its agricultural systems were being structured to ensure that remained the case.

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## Part III: The False Dawn of Independence (1960s–1980s)

When African nations won independence in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, there was genuine hope that agriculture would finally be redirected toward African food security and farmer welfare. But two forces rapidly undermined these efforts.

**The Green Revolution Arrives — and Largely Bypasses Africa**

The Green Revolution of the 1940s–1970s transformed agriculture in Asia and Latin America through the introduction of high-yield seed varieties paired with irrigation and chemical fertilisers. Africa's experience was starkly different. The Green Revolution's signature crops — wheat and rice — were not Africa's staple crops. African farming systems were far more diverse, fragmented, and rainfed than the irrigated paddies of Asia. African smallholders, who farmed an average of less than two hectares and often without reliable water access, could not afford the expensive chemical inputs the new seeds required. The Green Revolution, largely, skipped Africa. But crucially, it introduced a model — seeds tied to chemical fertilisers and pesticides — that would return to Africa with far greater political force in the decades ahead.

**Structural Adjustment: The Second Undoing**

The debt crises of the late 1970s and 1980s brought the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to the doorsteps of virtually every African government. The price of emergency loans was structural adjustment. For African agriculture, the consequences were catastrophic.

Governments were told to stop giving subsidies for seeds and fertilizer. They were also forced to sell off state-run companies that helped farmers sell their crops. These policies encouraged farmers to grow cash crops for export. Instead of growing food to feed their families, they were told to grow coffee, cocoa, or cotton. This created a dangerous situation. When the global price for these crops fell, farmers had no money and no food to eat. This shift toward monoculture damaged the soil and reduced the variety of food available. [African Elements](https://www.africanelements.org/news/the-hidden-history-of-africas-growing-food-sovereignty-crisis/)

In Africa, 80% of World Bank adjustment loans were subject to agriculture-related pricing or trade policy conditions, including reduction or removal of export taxes, reduction of import tariffs, removal of internal market regulations, and reduction in public production and infrastructure services. Structural adjustment significantly reduced a government's ability to invest in programmes to increase production, such as irrigation, research, fertilizer use, seed production and marketing. [Taylor & Francis Online](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07900627.2020.1739512)

The cruel irony is that the same countries imposing these "free market" conditions — the United States and EU member states — maintained massive subsidies for their own farmers throughout this entire period. African governments were required to dismantle exactly the support structures that wealthy nations were using to entrench their own agricultural competitiveness.

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## Part IV: The New Corporate Frontier — AGRA and the Second Green Revolution (2006–Present)

In 2006, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was founded with great fanfare, backed primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Its stated mission: to double yields and incomes for smallholder farmers while halving hunger in 13 focus countries within a decade.

Fifteen years and over one billion dollars later, a damning 2022 donor-commissioned evaluation found that AGRA had fallen far short of its goals. AGRA has unequivocally failed in its mission to increase productivity and incomes and reduce food insecurity, and has in fact harmed broader efforts to support African farmers. [African Arguments](https://africanarguments.org/2021/09/open-letter-the-green-revolution-in-africa-has-unequivocally-failed/)

But the failure is not merely one of inefficiency. Critics argue it represents something more troubling: a systematic attempt to commercialise African agriculture in the interests of multinational corporations.

**What AGRA Actually Did**

AGRA is undoubtedly laying the groundwork for the commercialisation of African agriculture and its selective integration into global circuits of accumulation. The shadow of Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and other seed and agrichemical multinationals lie just behind the scenes of AGRA's show. Building new markets and market infrastructure for commercial seed in Africa opens the door for future occupation by multinationals. [Acbio](https://acbio.org.za/corporate-expansion/alliance-green-revolution-africa-agra-groundwork-commercialisation-african-agriculture/)

The drive to spread GMOs across Africa was boosted by a 2012 G8 initiative, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which matched 10 African countries with Western aid agencies and companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, and Yara, the Norwegian fertilizer giant. [The Nation](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/new-colonialist-food-economy/) AGRA's longtime president was known for telling investors to "come for the food security, but stay for the economic opportunity."

More recently, following a damning 2022 evaluation that revealed it had failed to meet its goals, AGRA has shifted its focus away from direct fieldwork with farmers to exerting influence on government policy. The consequences have been stark — weakened farmer-managed seed systems, exclusion of civil society voices, and the entrenchment of models that threaten biodiversity, soil health, and local food systems. [The Cooperator News](https://thecooperator.news/investigation-exposes-agras-undue-influence-on-african-agricultural-policies/)

**The Seed Law Campaign**

Perhaps the most alarming dimension of this agenda has been its influence on African seed legislation. There has been a coordinated push — backed by AGRA, Gates Foundation funding, and US government pressure — to harmonise African seed laws along intellectual property lines that serve corporate interests.

The best way to achieve corporate control over seeds is to push governments to introduce new seed laws. These include intellectual property laws and seed trade regulations, both measures to privatize seed production and ban non-registered farmers' seeds. [Greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/50635/monsanto-in-south-africathe-true-cost-of-our-food/) In South Africa, seed bills approved in 2018 together undermine farmer-managed seed systems and prohibit the age-old practices of recycling, exchanging, and selling farm-saved seed. In Ghana, a Plant Breeders Bill was pushed through parliament that would restrict farmers from freely saving, swapping, and breeding seeds. Under new laws protecting the intellectual property rights of biotech, farmers would be subject to hefty fines for growing anything that has been patented, even if their crops were cross-pollinated. [Natural Society](https://naturalsociety.com/new-monsanto-law-africa-force-gmos-farmers/)

In the United States, Monsanto (now Bayer) sued hundreds of farmers to protect its patent rights on its GM seeds. In Brazil, Monsanto won a $7.7 billion lawsuit against farmers after the court ruled that farmers cannot save and replant Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready soybeans. [Greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/publications/52437/gmos-a-neo-colonial-technology-undermining-food-and-seed-sovereignty-in-kenya/) These are the legal precedents now being imported into Africa.

**The Seed Monopoly Problem**

As of 2019, four seed companies control more than 75 percent of plant breeding research, 60 percent of the commercial seed market, and 76 percent of global agrochemical sales. In 2018, agribusiness company Bayer absorbed Monsanto following a $63 billion buyout. The company has since gained control of 98 percent of trait markers for herbicide-resistant soybeans and 79 percent of trait markers for herbicide-resistant corn. [The Yale Review of International Studies](https://yris.yira.org/column/africa-and-the-western-monpolization-of-agribusiness/)

When African governments adopt seed laws that require formal registration and intellectual property protection, they are not creating space for African innovation — they are clearing the runway for this oligopoly.

AGRA and its corporate allies engage in what many would call theft — not simply through promotion of patents over living organisms, but also by refusing to reciprocate with royalties or shared profits back to those who provided the wealth of genetic materials in the first place. [ScienceOpen](https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.1080/03056244.2012.688647)

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## Part V: What Has Actually Happened to Africa's Soils and Nutrition

The consequences of decades of colonial extraction, structural adjustment, and Green Revolution-style input dependency can now be measured in the land itself.

**Soil degradation is at crisis levels.** Approximately 75–80% of the continent's cultivated area is reportedly degraded, resulting in a loss of 30–60 kg of nutrients per hectare annually. This affects more than 485 million people — 65% of the population. Projections indicate that over half of the currently arable land may become unusable by 2050. [AUDA-NEPAD](https://www.nepad.org/publication/briefing-note-addressing-africas-soil-health-challenges-through-ten-year-african) The African continent loses a staggering $4 billion worth of soil nutrients annually due to erosion. [International Fund for Agricultural Development](https://www.ifad.org/en/w/news/africa-fertilizer-and-soil-health-summit-a-catalyst-for-change-in-african-agriculture)

**Chemical fertilisers have deepened the problem.** African soils are geologically very old and respond poorly to mineral fertilisers precisely because they lack the organic matter and microbial life necessary to process and retain nutrients. Applying synthetic fertilisers to degraded soils produces diminishing returns. Worse, the salts in synthetic fertilisers further acidify already stressed soils — creating a dependency cycle where the more you apply, the more you need. The life cycle of nitrogen fertiliser production accounts for more than 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. [Heinrich Böll Stiftung](https://www.boell.de/en/2025/02/12/green-fertilizer-in-africa-no-substitute-for-an-agroecological-transition)

**Nutritional diversity has collapsed.** The push toward hybrid monocultures has devastated the variety of foods grown and available in African communities. Traditional climate-resistant and nutrient-rich crops have declined. Millet production fell by 24 percent in the 13 AGRA focus countries from 2006 to 2018. [Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung](https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication?tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=42635&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews_uid%5D=0&cHash=e61b18144798eaf7a46bebe5837b4dfe) These are precisely the crops rich in iron, zinc, and other micronutrients in which African populations are increasingly deficient.

**Biodiversity loss has been severe.** The current industrial food system based on monocultures, widespread use of agrochemicals, commercial and patented seeds, and genetically modified seeds is a major contributor to the disappearance of 75% of plant genetic diversity in the last century. [Greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/50635/monsanto-in-south-africathe-true-cost-of-our-food/) In Africa, this loss has specific cultural and nutritional dimensions — these are not just genetic resources, they are the embodied knowledge of communities, the resilience of ecosystems, and the identity of peoples.

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## Part VI: The Recurring Pattern — What History Tells Us

Stepping back across the full arc — from pre-colonial agriculture through colonialism, structural adjustment, and the contemporary corporate push — a pattern emerges with brutal clarity.

**External actors continuously redefine African agriculture's purpose.** In each era, the primary redirection has been away from feeding African communities and toward serving external economic interests. Colonial powers wanted export crops. Structural adjustment architects wanted open markets for Northern agribusiness. Contemporary philanthro-capitalists want investment returns dressed up as development.

**The vehicle changes; the destination remains the same.** Colonial administrators were replaced by World Bank economists, who have in turn been joined by foundation-funded development organisations. The language shifts — from civilising mission to modernisation to food security — but the structural outcome is consistent: resource and wealth extraction continue to inhibit economic development for Africans in Africa. [Taylor & Francis Online](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07900627.2020.1739512)

**African knowledge and seed systems are systematically devalued.** In each phase, the implicit or explicit message is that African farmers' own seeds, knowledge, and practices are backward or insufficient. Colonial extension services pushed European farming methods. Green Revolution models assumed that high-yield varieties from international research centres were superior to African landraces. Today, harmonised seed laws treat farmer-saved seeds as a problem to be regulated out of existence.

**The costs of failure consistently land on African farmers.** The profits are privatised. The losses are socialised — onto the continent's most vulnerable people.

**Civil society has consistently resisted — and been consistently marginalised.** As one African advocate put it: "He who pays the piper calls the tune." [AFSA](https://afsafrica.org/pulling-back-the-veil-agras-influence-on-africas-agricultural-policies/) From independence-era farmers' cooperatives to contemporary organisations like AFSA and the African Centre for Biodiversity, African civil society has repeatedly documented these patterns and proposed alternatives. It has consistently been excluded from key decision-making or overridden by donor financial leverage.

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## Part VII: Whose Interests Are Being Prioritised?

It is worth stating this plainly.

The contemporary seed and fertiliser agenda in Africa primarily serves the financial interests of a small number of large Northern corporations and their allied foundations — at the expense of the long-term food sovereignty and economic wellbeing of African smallholder farmers.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It is documented in the business strategies of Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva, and BASF. It is visible in the lobbying activities of AGRA on behalf of fertiliser producers and seed companies. AGRA lobbies governments on behalf of agricultural corporations to pass legislation that will benefit fertilizer producers and seed companies instead of strengthening small-scale food production. [Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung](https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication?tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=42635&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews_uid%5D=0&cHash=e61b18144798eaf7a46bebe5837b4dfe)

As Mariam Mayet, executive director of the African Centre for Biodiversity, stated: "For years we have documented the efforts to spread the Green Revolution in Africa, and the dead-ends it will lead to: declining soil health, loss of agricultural biodiversity, loss of farmer sovereignty, and locking of African farmers into a system that is not designed for their benefit, but for the profits of mostly Northern multinational corporations." [The Elephant](https://www.theelephant.info/analysis/2022/01/22/agras-green-revolution-has-failed-critics-say/)

Whose interests are NOT being prioritised: the 80%+ of African farmers who are smallholders; women farmers, who produce an estimated 60–80% of Africa's food but are most excluded from formal input markets; communities whose cultural identities are inseparable from their seed varieties; future generations who will inherit either living soil ecosystems or degraded wastelands; and African governments' own long-term food security and economic sovereignty.

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## Part VIII: What African Governments Must Be Wary Of

African governments face extraordinary pressure — through aid conditionality, diplomatic relationships, foundation funding, and the promise of foreign investment — to adopt agricultural policies that serve external interests. Here is what must be scrutinised:

**Seed law "harmonisation."** Any regional or national seed legislation that requires formal registration of all seed varieties, penalises seed saving and exchange, or grants intellectual property protection to corporate breeders must be subjected to rigorous independent scrutiny. Who wrote the draft? Who funded the advocacy for it? What are the penalties for farmers? Who benefits?

**Fertiliser dependency as a "solution."** The proposal to triple synthetic fertiliser use across Africa by 2034 — embedded in the African Fertiliser and Soil Health Action Plan — should be viewed with deep scepticism. It will dramatically increase African dependence on imported inputs, expose farmers to volatile global commodity prices, and continue the soil degradation it claims to address.

**GMO seed approvals without sovereignty protections.** Lifting GMO bans will expose farmers to the exorbitant prices of GM seeds and they are likely to be locked into debt cycles as they try to pay for seeds acquired through loans. [Greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/publications/52437/gmos-a-neo-colonial-technology-undermining-food-and-seed-sovereignty-in-kenya/) Approving GM crops without watertight protections against intellectual property disputes and cross-contamination liability is an open invitation for the legal predation already seen in the United States and Brazil.

**Foundation-funded "development" with embedded corporate interests.** The Gates Foundation contributes money to Monsanto to breed GM products and supports the corporate call for uniform regional seed laws. [ScienceOpen](https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.1080/03056244.2012.688647) When a foundation simultaneously funds development programmes and invests in the corporations those programmes create markets for, the conflict of interest must be named and scrutinised.

**Aid conditionality in agricultural policy.** Bilateral and multilateral aid should not come with conditions that require African governments to open seed or fertiliser markets to specific corporations, remove tariff protections for local food producers, or adopt intellectual property regimes that override farmers' rights.

As faith leaders writing on this issue have noted: "Not only does the corporatization of seed undermine existing indigenous knowledge systems regarding seed diversity and multi-cropping, but more insidiously, it centralises control of production systems, disempowering and reducing the resilience of small-scale farmers who rely on informal trade, historical and cultural knowledge in addition to their unique understanding of their ecological landscapes." [Substack](https://strattyd.substack.com/p/no-seeds-more-subjugation-less-sovereignty)

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## Part IX: What Is in the Best Interest of African Farmers and Seed Sovereignty

The evidence from across the continent is growing. The best interests of African farmers — and the best chance for long-term food security — lie not in doubling down on an input-dependent model, but in a paradigm that builds on, rather than destroys, Africa's agricultural heritage.

**1. Protecting and strengthening farmer-managed seed systems.** The vast majority of African farmers still source most of their seeds from their own saved stock or local community networks. These systems are not primitive backups — they are sophisticated, adaptive, and resilient. They must be legally protected, publicly resourced, and recognised as the foundation of African food security. In 2024, Kenya adopted a National Agroecology Strategy, and a court decision affirmed farmers' right to save, share, and exchange seeds — which had not always been guaranteed. [Food Tank](https://foodtank.com/news/2026/02/the-local-step-that-changed-an-entire-countrys-approach-to-agroecology/)

**2. Investing in community seed banks.** Tanzania is building what may become Africa's first comprehensive national seed bank system designed to serve agroecological farmers. Unlike conventional gene banks focused solely on preservation, this initiative aims to make diverse, locally adapted varieties accessible to farming communities while supporting the knowledge systems that sustain them. [Agroecology-coalition](https://agroecology-coalition.org/countries-advancing-seed-sovereignty/) This model, replicable across the continent, provides insurance against climate shocks and protects biodiversity simultaneously.

**3. Agroecology as the primary development paradigm.** Agroecology improves crop yields while strengthening climate resilience — critical for African agriculture. By preserving indigenous crops and promoting seed sovereignty, agroecology empowers smallholder farmers. Community-led initiatives, including farmer-to-farmer networks and local seed banks, are already demonstrating success in advancing sustainable food systems. [Environment+Energy Leader](https://www.environmentenergyleader.com/stories/agroecology-africas-sustainable-path-to-food-security,62707)

Participants at the African Agroecology Workshop 2025 called for heavy investment in infrastructure, education, and research to support agroecology and ensure food sovereignty, and urged all African governments to allocate at least 50% of their agricultural budgets to agroecology. [Safcei](https://safcei.org/agroecology-for-food-sovereignty-african-champions-call-for-policy-support-and-investment-to-transform-food-systems/)

**4. Regenerative soil health — not synthetic fertiliser addiction.** The use of nitrogen-fixing legumes, cover crops, composting, and integrated crop-livestock systems can rebuild African soils at a fraction of the cost of synthetic inputs — without the import dependency, greenhouse gas emissions, or ecological damage. Governments must shift budget allocations from synthetic input subsidies toward soil restoration and agroecological extension services.

**5. Legally enshrining farmers' rights.** African governments must ratify and fully implement the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which recognises farmers' rights to save, use, exchange, and sell farm-saved seeds and to participate in decision-making about plant genetic resources. These rights must be embedded in national legislation, not left as aspirational statements.

**6. African-led agricultural research.** Indigenous seed varieties have evolved over generations to adapt to local environmental conditions, making them naturally resilient to climate extremes. In contrast, genetically modified and hybrid seeds promoted by agribusiness often require high inputs of water, fertilisers, and pesticides — resources that are increasingly scarce in many African regions. [Thechanzo](https://thechanzo.com/2025/03/03/the-last-seed-a-reflection-on-food-sovereignty-and-the-battle-for-africas-agricultural-future/) Research priorities must be set by African farming communities, not by Northern foundations whose funding incentives align with commercial seed and chemical companies.

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## Part X: The Way Forward — A Sovereign Agricultural Future

Africa is at a genuine crossroads. The pressure to adopt a corporate, input-dependent agricultural model has never been greater. But the resistance — from civil society, farmers' organisations, and an emerging generation of African agronomists and policymakers — has also never been more organised or articulate.

**For African governments:**

Establish seed sovereignty legislation that explicitly protects farmer-managed seed systems. Audit all agricultural policy processes for undue corporate or foundation influence. Redirect agricultural budgets from synthetic input subsidies to agroecological extension, soil restoration, and local seed bank development. Use the African Union, ECOWAS, SADC, and EAC to develop continental frameworks for seed sovereignty that prioritise farmers' rights over corporate intellectual property. Demand that aid comes without policy conditions that benefit the donors' own agricultural corporations.

**For African civil society and farmer organisations:**

Continue documenting and publicising the concrete outcomes of corporate-controlled agriculture versus farmer-managed and agroecological systems. Build and sustain the farmer-to-farmer knowledge networks that have already proven their value. Demand genuine representation — not managed consultation — in all agricultural policy processes.

**For the international community:**

Respect African food sovereignty as a genuine human right, not an obstacle to development. Fund African-led agricultural research and agroecological transition without conditions that serve Northern corporate interests. Reform intellectual property regimes that allow the appropriation of African genetic wealth without benefit-sharing.

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The deepest insight that history offers is this: African agriculture has not underperformed because of factors inherent to Africa and its people. Before the arrival of European traders, complex agricultural systems existed which supported food security, manufacturing and trade. External interference manipulated these systems in pursuit of export crops. Independence has not fundamentally changed this. [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/tracing-the-history-of-farming-across-africa-gives-clues-to-low-production-outputs-163386)

The seeds — literally and figuratively — of a different future already exist. As one elder farmer in Uganda put it: "When the young ones take up our seeds, they carry forward not just plants, but knowledge, prayers, and memory. That is how communities survive droughts and wars." [Cultural Survival](https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/reclaiming-our-seeds-reclaiming-our-future-indigenous)

Those seeds are in the hands, the knowledge, and the determination of Africa's hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers. The question is whether African governments and institutions will finally choose to serve those farmers — or continue accepting payment to open the door to those who would dispossess them.

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*This article draws on research from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), the African Centre for Biodiversity, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, GRAIN, Greenpeace Africa, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the African Union's Nairobi Declaration on Fertiliser and Soil Health (2024), and published academic research on African agricultural history and political economy.*